My wife and I are newlyweds and we’re united by all sorts of great things - one is conserving energy. Katie even went so far as to find a zero-carbon footprint stationery for our wedding as well as calculating the travel footprint of our guests and paying it back in a donation to American Forests. In terms of day-to-day small changes, Katie changed all of the bulbs in our house, her parent’s house, and her brother’s house to ENERGY STAR compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). In addition, she helps friends and family analyze their monthly bills to find ways to save energy (i.e. unplugging cell phone chargers, unplugging appliances while away, replacing anything they can with ENERGY STAR appliances, etc.). Katie also helps people recycle old electronics either in recycling programs or by giving unwanted devices such as iPods to families in need. When we redid our kitchen, she promised to use only ENERGY STAR appliances – and she did. Now we’re moving to our first home and she is as committed as ever to reducing our footprint and helping others to do the same. I love that she’s passionate about this while also helping people understand changes that are within their own means.
Q: What is the smartest energy decision you have made? The best everyday decision has been to change our light bulbs to ENERGY STAR compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). The best larger-scale decision that we’ve made was to find a way to zero out the carbon footprint from our wedding.
Q: How has this decision affected your lifestyle and your wallet for the better? Changing to CFLs made a surprising difference to our electric bill. What’s more, we don’t have to worry about changing them frequently because not a single one has failed and we’ve had them in place for over 18 months.
Q: Are you surprised at the big changes that came from making a small change? Yes. We were really surprised at the size of the difference from something so basic.
Q: What led you to make the decision in the first place? Wanting to do what we could to help with conservation efforts.
Q: How have you shared your experience with others? Yes. We’ve shared our experiences with family and friends, which has inspired a lot of them to make similar changes.
